consider the coconut (the what?)
by potahtopotato
Summary: George's life can be divided into two pieces: Before and After. This is the story of the After (a three-part oneshot).
1. Chapter 1

It's a disaster. As a joke shop owner, George knows all about disasters, but usually he's the one creating them, and usually they don't involve him getting thrown out of classy restaurants; George makes sure that whatever establishments he gets thrown out of are never in any way reputable.

He considers apologizing again, but Angelina will probably just say (again) that it's really her fault, and then they'll be stuck in an endless loop of manners. George despises manners, but at this point he's left with little else. He tried, of course, to make jokes and laugh, but he finds he's not too funny nowadays, and Angelina didn't seem to be in the mood for laughing.

"Look," he says, and Angelina looks at him. The bags under her eyes were somehow less visible inside, but under the harsh streetlights she looks as though someone took an earlier version of Angelina Johnson and simply wrung all the will to live out of her.

"Yes?" she asks. George decides that, since he's not likely to be getting a second date anyhow (doesn't want one, either), he may as well come out and ask.

"Fred took you to the Yule Ball," he says, and she nods. "Why are you here with me, then?"

She shrugs. "I thought you'd understand," she says, "and it would've sounded odd if I'd said I just wanted to spend a little time around someone who's doing worse than I am, yeah? Easier to call it a date and leave it at that."

George stares at her. "Doing worse than you are?"

"My dad died," she says. "Not... not because of the war, I'm Muggleborn. But he'd been sick for a while, and I've yet to meet a Healer that'll treat a Muggle, and my Healing Charms seemed to make him worse."

"Oh."

"He was... it's not the same. Fred was- you two were... but he was my dad, and he's gone now."

George nods. He doesn't know what else he can do; or, rather, he knows that there's nothing he can do. His family doesn't realize that, mostly, and that's part of the reason he was so happy to escape, even if for only an evening. He didn't know what he was expecting, but somehow, standing in the cold outside a building he never wanted to enter in the first place doesn't miss the mark as badly as it should have. He's not even disappointed, really.

"I've been meaning to ask you, will you reopen the joke shop?" Angelina asks.

"I haven't decided."

They walk through Muggle London, and George hates it, hates the people and the taxis and the way the world is going on even though Fred is dead, hates himself for walking and talking and breathing even though Fred is dead.

"I'd help you," she says.

"Would you?"

"If I could."

 _No one can help me_ sounds far too dramatic, but George is feeling dramatic right now, and anyhow the sentiment is correct.

"Why?"

"People need to see that life goes on. That You-Know-Who didn't really win."

"Can't someone else show them?"

Angelina turns to him, and her voice is quieter but no less certain than when she was arguing with Oliver Wood about tactics or shooting hex after hex at the Death Eaters during the Battle of Hogwarts.

"They are showing them. Quidditch will be restarting soon, the League said half a year after the last battle and that's almost up. Hogwarts is running as usual, the Ministry is being incompetent, people are moving back into Diagon."

"Let them."

"You could help a lot of people. And if that doesn't matter to you, you could help yourself, because we both know that at some point you'll have to keep living and it might as well be sooner rather than later."

"What if I don't? Want to keep living, that is."

"Then be sure to sell Weasley's Wizard Wheezes to someone who does."

George recoils, just the slightest bit.

"This is an odd lecture," he says. "First I've got to keep the shop running, and now I should off myself?"

"It's not a lecture, it's a proposal. I'll sink as much money as I have into the shop, if you keep running it. My parents are- my mum is rather well off, and if I make the Appleby Arrows money won't be a problem."

"I don't need money."

"No, but I believe you do need a new business partner."

She sighs. "You don't- you don't have to do anything. Go home and pretend this never happened, I promise not to mention this ever again if you don't contact me. I just want to do something. If I help other people, I might end up accidentally helping myself. Who knows?"

"Goodnight, Angelina."

"Goodnight."

She Disapparates with a sharp pop, and George stares at the spot where she'd been. He thinks about many things, and one of those things is the entirely unsurprising strength of Angelina Johnson.

Later that night, he will flip open a notebook that had been gathering dust for the past five months and read the notes he'd made for himself during the war.

 _Juice that can hide vegs if dropped in - somehow hide from parents, special additive rather than drink_

 _Multi-use whoopee cushions - notice-me-not charm, works multiple times_

 _Sentient coconuts - practically mammals anyway_

 _Children's wands that can only do a few spells - lumos, protego, etc, pre-programmed somehow?_

George will glance down the list, his eyes catching on a few words in particular. Some are good ideas, but seem too difficult to begin with. He will decide that the whoopee cushions will be good as a start, just to let people know that Weasley's Wizard Wheezes is still going, still running. And because at any given moment he's working on at least two ideas, George will pick the sentient coconuts as his side project.

George will Summon a piece of parchment and a quill and begin make a list of ingredients that he'll need to buy in Diagon Alley tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

George throws the boomslang skin in the cauldron and steps back hurriedly. When the bubbling mixture doesn't explode, he sighs in relief and sets a timer for twenty-four hours before turning back to his worktable. The boomslang was the last ingredient in this step of the brewing process, and now that he's done he can return to his other (far more feasible) projects.

It's not that George doesn't think that he can create consciousness, because he makes it a rule not to think about whether he can or can't actually create things, like step-dancing chickens or a drink that changes color based on the hair color of your current crush. He just makes, and when things don't work out he Banishes the smoldering ruins of his latest failed invention and tries something new.

It's just that this attempt is different. After the war (after Fred, after Fred, after Fred), George had turned to more ambitious projects. He's still pumping out the usual nonsensical gags and prank items (the sales figures can attest to that), but George wants more of a challenge than trying to find words that rhyme with "diarrhea". He wants to- what was it Angelina had said all those months ago?- he wants to help people, if only for the possibly-vain hope that he could learn, in the end, how to help himself.

Which all leads back to the sentient coconuts. The nice thing about coconuts is that they're hairy and vaguely fuzzy and well-shaped, and it's easy to feel that if only they had some legs and maybe eyes they'd be well on the way to mammalhood. Best of all, of course, they can be enchanted so that they necessitate very little care, are friendly, and would, overall, make the perfect companion for those suffering from a terrible loss. Hearts can't be healed with fruits (not even adorable ones with limbs and positive attitudes), but George is pretty sure that hearts can never be healed anyway. So why not try to make the not-healing, at the very least, a little less lonely?

The problem is that George may have underestimated the difficulty of his idea. His plan is to make living things, actual- admittedly low-level but nevertheless conscious organisms- out of fruits, desperation, magic, and a whole lot of hard work.

Because the joke shop needs to stay open. (George used to resent the word _need_ , used to apply it to grades and studying and not disappointing his parents. Now he knows that it's the only thing keeping him afloat; that if he didn't need to, he wouldn't eat; that if he didn't need to, he wouldn't work; that if he didn't need to keep living for his family's sake he would simply kill himself and be done with it all.) So George sketches towels that disappear once you reach for them and designs brooms that throw the rider off and buys pens in bulk from Muggle manufacturers and sells them as Self-Inking Quills and keeps himself busy, busy, busy.

And all the while, he works (privately, if not secretly) on a product that might be more than a joke. On a product that might be able to help- not him, George is beyond help, as he's said before and will say again- but someone. A product that might be able to relieve, if only for a little while, the pain of being alone.

Angelina comes by a few times a week, and George is grateful for it. She offers him free tickets to Quidditch games (she Chases for the Appleby Arrows), and sometimes George attends, and cheers, and almost smiles when she scores a particularly spectacular goal or makes an unlikely interception.

In a few weeks, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes will make its first hundred thousand Galleons in profits. On the same day, George Weasley will make his first sizable donation to the Orphans of England Foundation, an organization created shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts that aims to secure aid and provide assistance to orphans, widows, and widowers alike.

In a few months, the Appleby Arrows will claw their way to the top of the standings after an incredibly unexpected win against the Montrose Magpies. Shortly afterwards, Angelina Johnson will kiss George Weasley for the first time.

In a few years, Angelina and George Weasley will have their first child. His name will be Fred, partly for his uncle, who died too young; partly for the half of George's heart that has never healed; and partly because, Angelina has to admit, _Fred Weasley the Second_ has quite a nice ring to it.

The sentient coconuts will remain on the back-burner of both George's workroom and of his mind. Babies take so much out of you (and give so much more) that it's hard to find the time to dwell on possibly-impossible ideas from back when you didn't know if you would live (if you would let yourself live) to see the next morning.

But even if George will move on with his life, the idea will not, and occasionally he'll still find himself thinking, and dreaming, about a companion for those who have no one else.


	3. Chapter 3

A week after Roxanne's boyfriend of four years dumps her, George presents his daughter with a package. It's wrapped in purple and orange paper and has the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes logo stamped on the top.

It's a Saturday afternoon, and Roxanne's lying on the couch, thumbing halfheartedly through a Quidditch magazine and occasionally sighing. She has, George reflects, a whole lot of nerve for someone that's just moved back into her parents' house.

When George clears his throat and sits down next to her, she fixes him with a bleary-eyed stare and shuffles her feet to make room for him.

"How are you doing?" he asks.

Roxanne just sighs. "How does it look like I'm doing?"

George considers this for a moment and shrugs. "Anyway, now that you're living with us, you have to help your old, tired parents. What do you think about testing some projects for me?"

"Why do I have to do it?" Roxanne asks, narrowing her eyes.

"I don't have a tester in your demographic yet, but you always seemed so busy. Now you have time to try my products, and I can stop picking up random women off the street."

"Who's picking up random women off the street?" Angelina asks, sticking her head in through the door.

"Mum, Dad wants to me to be his guinea pig!"

"Good for him, I've been telling him to utilize available resources for years. George, it's girls' night out, don't wait up."

"Mum!" Roxanne says, but Angelina is gone.

George grins at his daughter and gestures at the box. "There's nothing bad in here, it's a product I've been working on for years, and I think I've finally got it figured out."

Roxanne pushes herself up so that her back is against the cushions. "Not like I've got anything better to do on a Saturday, do I? Give it here, then."

George passes her the parcel, and she rips off the wrapping paper. The box is light brown and slightly fuzzy, and Roxanne crinkles her nose.

"What is this?" she asks. "Don't tell me it's one of your weird products again."

"Just open it."

Roxanne rolls her eyes but compiles, and is left staring, slightly dumbfounded, at the contents. There's a cushion (that comes in red, green, or blue), and on top of it, snoring quietly, is a coconut.

"Is - what is this, Dad?"

"The peak of my creative spirit," George says, and he can't help but smile. "That is my greatest invention yet: Adoraballs."

"Adoraballs?"

"See how it's round and cute?"

"Yeah, but what the hell is it?"

George leans over and pokes the coconut, which gives a little start and opens its cartoonishly large eyes.

Roxanne whirls around. "Is it alive? Have you - managed to make a living thing?"

George nods, and Roxanne's eyes widen.

"What does it do?" she asks.

"Mostly waddles around and bumps into things. Here, put it on the floor."

She does, and they both watch as it stumbles, falls down, and picks itself back up. As it begins to explore the room, Roxann  
e turns to her father.

"What's it for, though?"

He shrugs. "It's a pet you barely have to take care of, it's cute, and it won't dump you for some blonde Muggle it barely knows."

"Dad!"

"I'm not wrong. Anyway, keep it around for a few days and tell me what you think or if it's ready for the shelves. The caring instructions are in the box, and I'll be in my office. I'm behind on paperwork."

"Alright, then," Roxanne says, lying back down. "See you."

He doesn't get further than the doorway, though, before he turns around to look at her. She's in the same position she was in earlier, but she's dropped the Quidditch magazine and is watching with amusement as the coconut attempts a complicated maneuver to get past the coffee table.

More than twenty years of hard work, all to make his daughter smile. Was it worth it? George wonders, then sees her face light up. Certainly.


End file.
